If Aliens: Colonial Marines were a Hadley's Hope-style space colony, I'd want to visit for one very specific reason. I'd arrive early, standing at the edge of a cliff on its lifeless surface, holding up red flares as I see the legendary USS Sulaco break the atmosphere, full of eager fanboys ready to play a game with tons of promise and years oftroubled development behind it. Then, I would toggle my radio transmitter to a wide-space broadcast and shout to the heavens, “Do not land! Everything here is dead! Game over, man!”

Maybe it would fall on deaf ears in a universe that favors pre-orders, but if I could warn off even a few Aliens diehards, my sacrificial slog through this game's ugly, poorly acted monotony would not be in vain.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is bad. Not “so bad it's good,” not “uneven, but with bright spots,” not “good except for awful glitches.” If it had launched in its current state alongside Doom 3 in 2004, A:CM would've been laughed out of the room for not even surpassing id's graphics engine, enemy AI, acting, or missions.

The comparison is apt: Gearbox Software has dared to deliver a faithful chunk of Aliens canon, but hundreds of other games (like, you know, Doom) have already mined James Cameron's general concept of hulking aliens and badass space marines without being tied down by a film license.

But blaming the handicap of the Aliens brand for the game's limited selection of enemies and weapons, not to mention an incredibly boring series of environments, gives the developers far, far too much credit. Welcome to hell.

Brain-dead battles

A:CM's campaign kicks off with the distress signal sent by the crew of the USS Sulaco near the end of the Aliens film. Your unit arrives 17 weeks afterward to find a ship filled with dead bodies, green goo, and lurking xenomorphs. Your first mission is to save a trapped comrade, who doesn't take long to blow himself up before the beast in his belly awakens. From there, your crew of marines must battle both xenomorphs and corporate Weiland Yutani thugs—the latter, to nobody's surprise, are trying to stage a massive cover-up of the whole debacle (among other things).

Enlarge/ If only the atmosphere of this screenshot made it into the game somehow.

The word “battle” in the last sentence deserves a few asterisks. Your human adversaries, even on the highest difficulties, bounce between being blissfully ignorant dolts when they're a few steps away to ridiculously accurate snipers when they're across a giant field. The lack of powerful weapons or compelling squad tactics among the enemy humans makes them feel like an insubstantial presence in the game. Your weapons are also severely limited: shotguns, machine guns and pistols, along with an occasional smartgun or flamethrower. Alternate fire with grenades and lightning bolts spice these up a bit, but barely.

Comparatively, you'd expect the alien xenos to bring the thunder. Not so much. A:CM peppers its corridor-heavy levels with sewer grates, ceiling holes, and other perfect spots for xenos to pop out and scare your marine. A motion tracker that pops up quickly with the tap of a button is supposed to provide warning of these ambushes, but it's rarely useful, mainly because it doesn't kick into gear until the game engine spawns foes in your immediate vicinity. This failing shines brightest when itty-bitty, hard-to-see “facehuggers” spawn right above you, with next to no warning from the tracker. In any case, these hiding spots never seem to preface a well-choreographed fight; your foes almost always appear straight ahead in uninteresting formations.

Xenos enjoy a lofty reputation in modern sci-fi for their mix of crafty and quick maneuvers, but those features are rarely on display in A:CM, especially when they haphazardly target your AI companions—invincible allies who carry unlimited ammo. Xenos will often trot right past you to suck down infinite AI bullets, which kills a lot of the tension.

Alien and human foes alike spawn out of thin air quite a bit—or glitch through injury and running motions into unexpected locations. This happens a lot in the game's open-air zones, typically giant fields where xenomorphs appear in the distance to crawl along a building or hop across debris. If you camp out to watch the xenos as they approach, you'll likely catch one of the game's biggest failings, as each and every one follows the exact same path. Spawn from hole. Crawl to point A. Hop to point B. Crawl to point C. Nearly every xeno encounter follows a scripted path, and it won't take even a novice marine very long to crack the code.

Jumping into an online co-op match doesn't mitigate these issues; enemy counts, spawn locations, and behaviors remain the same. In fact, so little of the game is tuned for cooperative tactics, even at the hardest difficulties, that you have to wonder whether the option was just shoehorned into an already-constructed solo game.

This is Aliens?

Not that good graphics could make up for these gameplay failings, but just for good measure, this game gives a new meaning to the word ugly. Its open expanses mostly consist of low-poly rock crag formations, all lined with invisible walls. The low-res textures are pretty astounding; every computer screen in A:CM glistens with low-res lines of “text” that you might expect from an N64 game. Effects in the distance are rendered as flat banners; simply tilt your view and a plume of smoke will look like it had been ripped from Duke Nukem 3D. Human faces are frozen, except for mouths and eyebrows.

A:CM's pre-rendered cut scenes look ripped from a prior build of the game, full of blurry textures, badly animated faces, and lower polygon counts. By itself, the disconnect is a little jarring; combined with the rest of the game, it's further proof of the "screw it, just sell the game" attitude Gearbox has delivered. Duke Nukem Forever wasn't just a fluke, then.

On occasion, the dialogue, matched to those lifeless faces, proves unintentionally hilarious—particularly one argument over a "leave the marine behind!" order that would be destined to win a Razzie if it appeared in a film. Even that measure of unintentional comedy is rare; most one-liners are nonsensical barks that rarely sound tough or fun. Certainly, the script never aspires to its inspiration's emotionally charged bravado (other than repeating the phrase "leave no marine behind" over a dozen times). Though the voice work generally ranges from serviceable to strained, Michael Biehn's phoned-in performance could prove to be the worst game voiceover of the past decade—so much for fan service.

A multiplayer hope?

To be fair, the competitive multiplayer modes received at least a little more care; asymmetrical combat between marines and xenos has its enjoyable moments, and some of the team deathmatch levels give xenos (which come in three classes: spit, sneak, or overwhelm) plenty of crawl/hide spots to surprise and disrupt an otherwise well-equipped marine squad.

Even this small bit of fun is sapped, though, thanks to an experience ranking system that's split into human and xeno levels. Your human XP goes up with any solo, co-op, or versus play, but xenos only benefit from online battling. This means it only takes a seven-hour run through the torturous campaign to max out a super-powered, heat-sensing battle rifle for your multiplayer marine that can take out any newbie xeno.

There's also an objective-based multiplayer mode called "ESCAPE??" that has xenos trying to disrupt a human mission. This had the potential to mimic the fun of Left 4 Dead's competitive multiplayer, but confusing pathing, wide-open levels (where xenos can't hide or sneak), and a huge load of marine-only bonuses tilt the tables too much.

Perhaps, as time wears on, one of the four development teams assigned to this game over its lifespan will spill the beans on how this disaster finally limped to launch. Maybe 20th Century Fox banged a few tables. Maybe the beleaguered staff of an already faltering Sega of America sent a few drunken e-mails. Maybe Randy Pitchford lost a bet.

It's a curious release, especially for Gearbox. Nobody had high expectations for Duke Nukem Forever, after all. We crowded around our PCs and Xboxes anticipating a giant turd, no matter how often Pitchford maniacally insisted it would be fun. But over the past year, Gearbox has gone to great lengths to insist that A:CM's authentic movie set levels, official canon script, and Easter eggs would make this the ultimate Aliens fanboy experience.

All lies—severe lies that should burn up the goodwill of Aliens and Gearbox fans alike. Make like Sigourney Weaver and stay as far away from this failed dredging of the franchise as possible.

The good:

Multiplayer makes a few cool asymmetric strides, so long as the two sides' XP levels are somehow equal.

The bad:

Atrocious AI and xenomorph choreography

Underwhelming weapons, particularly puny-feeling machine guns

Script fails to hit humorous, badass, or emotionally charged notes of its forebear

The ugly:

Pretty much the entire game

They even screwed up the powerloader, which is a nightmare to control

Verdict: Skip it

Don't be fooled by this thrilling-looking screenshot... this game is not thrilling.

Oh... spider-like enemies on the other side of glass... never seen THAT before...

So I'm guessing these were the guys at Gearbox who did Duke Nukem Forever? Kept well apart from the Borderlands guys except on Fridays they have a get-together to exchange jokes about poop and boobs.

Edit: I'm kind of joking, but on the other hand there seems to be a definite B-team. Or more like an F-team.

I second the notion ,because Gearbox are the same people that created Brothers In Arms which actually managed to pair a WW2 shooter with some actual tactics AND an actual plot.. So,they know how to make shooters with a good atmosphere and plot,so.. I guess they left A:CM to the interns

You're exaggerating, and making this way too dramatic. The game is not anything special in any way, nor it's a worthy part of the Alien canon. BUT I'm having fun playing it, and the kinda dated graphics don't look THAT bad like you say. Plus, I think it has some really cool-looking environments. I think the fans of the second movie will appreciate this game, as I did.

You're exaggerating, and making this way too dramatic. The game is not anything special in any way, nor it's a worthy part of the Alien canon. BUT I'm having fun playing it, and the kinda dated graphics don't look THAT bad like you say. Plus, I think it has some really cool-looking environments. I think the fans of the second movie will appreciate this game, as I did.

A critics job is to be critical, highlight the bad and mention the good!

You're exaggerating, and making this way too dramatic. The game is not anything special in any way, nor it's a worthy part of the Alien canon. BUT I'm having fun playing it, and the kinda dated graphics don't look THAT bad like you say. Plus, I think it has some really cool-looking environments. I think the fans of the second movie will appreciate this game, as I did.

Although certainly not the decade-plus that was Duke Nukem Forever, A:CM was actually in the development stages for a couple years. Gearbox used to blog about their progress and showed off bits and pieces as they progressed. They had a lot of ambitious ideas they showed off and the original graphic design really did hearken back to Aliens.

Then they just kinda got swept up in DNF, then Borderlands 2, and A:CM stopped really getting a lot of air time. Sadly, this title is nothing like their original plans. It even looks different, graphically, than what they had originally intended based on their early dev blogs. It is the epitome of a game that looks and feels rushed, or of a studio who is trying their damnedest to put out another big name title while still riding the coattails of their last.

In nearly every way, and even as a fan of Aliens, this game is a major disappointment. There's a lot of "could have been" here.

I watched the ign 2 hour "preview" last night, Id already held off pre-ordering, but that, along with this review has moved the game to 'wait for a steam sale'.

Im sorry, it looks like a first generation Xbox 360 game, clunky animation, facial animation thats laughable (cmon Half life 2 is still the gold mark here), animations that dont blend, ai that is little more than a nested if then else loop, the sound seemed ok but it didnt seem to have heft. Hick's shotgun (an in game weapon) makes a bang noise, but it lacks oomph now that might just have been down to bad sound mix from the video, but whilst the pulse rifle and smartgun sound like the film, they dont sound quite right.

Its unfortunate that the game is garbage. But its really just part of the continual downward slide the franchise has taken over the years.... I am talking to you Prometheus & anything AvP.

So much build up and hype over the game only to have it be a let down is now just par for the course. I think the most exciting thing that's come out related to the Alien legacy was the severed doll's head that Gearbox sent out as part of the promo two years ago.

You're exaggerating, and making this way too dramatic. The game is not anything special in any way, nor it's a worthy part of the Alien canon. BUT I'm having fun playing it, and the kinda dated graphics don't look THAT bad like you say. Plus, I think it has some really cool-looking environments. I think the fans of the second movie will appreciate this game, as I did.

So I'm guessing these were the guys at Gearbox who did Duke Nukem Forever? Kept well apart from the Borderlands guys except on Fridays they have a get-together to exchange jokes about poop and boobs.

Edit: I'm kind of joking, but on the other hand there seems to be a definite B-team. Or more like an F-team.

Not quite.

DNF was in development limbo for over a decade, alternately passed around to different development teams or abandoned for years at a time. Gearbox eventually acquired the rights and compiled everything that was done and shipped it. You can't really blame them for the quality of the game -- I rather praise them for even managing to get the wretched thing out the door.

Its unfortunate that the game is garbage. But its really just part of the continual downward slide the franchise has taken over the years.... I am talking to you Prometheus & anything AvP

It's somewhat annoying when someone takes such an excellent universe (the look of the Aliens, the Marines, the tension in those first two movies) and squanders it on a game like this and the exorable later movies in the canon.

Anything worth buying today is worth buying in two weeks after the reviews are in. (Or in the case of this game, about 24 hours.)

Yep, unless it's an absolute dead cert that it won't be a stinker, it's best to wait for a review, or even a demo.

(That said, I remember loving the F.E.A.R. demo, and then discovered that the game was just an endless repetition of the same cube farm crawl, so even a demo can fool you).

I very rarely buy a game for full price any more, and if I do, it's not without supersampling quite a few reviews, otherwise I end up with insultingly brainless CODtard fare like Crysis 2. There's enough excellent stuff out there that you don't need to put up with that any more.

I remember loving the F.E.A.R. demo, and then discovered that the game was just an endless repetition of the same cube farm crawl, so even a demo can fool you.

I don't wanna stray off-topic too far, but I try to pretend that the boring cube farm office levels in the middle of FEAR are actually a genius piece of game pacing. They provide a "lull" in the game's pace to provide contrast just before that tremendous crescendo of a finish. Those last 1.5-2 hours, omg.

On-topic... I'm disappointed to hear that this Aliens game isn't particularly good. The first AvP game (nowadays called AvP 2000) was great, and since then they've... not been so good? Hmm. Shame.

Wonderful review. I much prefer game reviews that load up on zeropynctuation style honest truth about the bad/stupud/annoying/obnoxious in a game than an ign style 8/10 fawning over the price of ads sold on their website. If a game us good, it will show as such, even through the mist slap to the face brutal reviews like yatzee's with his long history of reviews... Although this leaves me salivating for the amusement sure to be in his version of this!

So I'm guessing these were the guys at Gearbox who did Duke Nukem Forever? Kept well apart from the Borderlands guys except on Fridays they have a get-together to exchange jokes about poop and boobs.

Edit: I'm kind of joking, but on the other hand there seems to be a definite B-team. Or more like an F-team.

Not quite.

DNF was in development limbo for over a decade, alternately passed around to different development teams or abandoned for years at a time. Gearbox eventually acquired the rights and compiled everything that was done and shipped it. You can't really blame them for the quality of the game -- I rather praise them for even managing to get the wretched thing out the door.

Sure we can. They released it, they charged money for it, and they had Randy Pitchford out pitching it as a good game when it was anything but.

If they'd finished it and sold it as a $15 novelty item, then sure, understanding is fine. When sold as a $60 product, it was crap. The people who are selling it at that price are responsible for the quality of the product.

And honestly, even Borderlands is slipping. The DLC quality has been all over the map, with the Hammerlock one being really weak compared to the base game.

This honestly doesn't surprise me - Gearbox as a developer has never given half a shit about anyone else's IPs in their work. 007: Nightfire on PC was an enormously lazy port to the point that they'd actually CUT massive chunks of the game out for the platform, their only real major responsibility for the PC port of Halo was the netcode (the original Xbox was effectively a PC, so most of the game was reusable) and I've seen upwards of three seconds of lag in LAN play on the finished version, and while they were probably stuck with a turd either way, they cut massive amounts of finished content from Duke Nukem Forever (as in, entire levels) to get it out the door just so that they could say that they were the ones who released it.

This is the way with Gearbox. They have a clear passion for their own IPs and that's generally obvious - Brothers in Arms was brilliantly original, and even though I don't like Borderlands I can see the enthusiasm there. That doesn't change the fact that they have absolutely no respect for the work of anyone else, and every single time they get their hands on someone else's property they are more or less guaranteed to shit all over it for a quick buck.

EDIT: See also: very publicly telling Interceptor Entertainment (the Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded folks) that Gearbox would give them full support with that free project... and then very privately telling Interceptor that they probably wouldn't be allowed to release it. I guess what I'm saying is that they're self-centered sleaze in corporate form.

All of them are, really. AVP and AVP2 both had pretty excellent campaigns and fantastic multiplayer (even though balance was a joke), and even the new AVP is actually rather excellent online on PC (the console versions stopped getting patches before flamethrowers were able to set things on fire, which is... a bit glaring).

This makes me desperately sad. I had tremendously high hopes for this game, in spite of the recent awful trailers, but it's bitterly disappointing to read reviews like this. When the highlight of what should be an atmosphere- and plot-heavy single-player feast is "the multiplayer isn't awful I guess", that's just bloody shameful.

I had Steam open in the other window to buy the game right after I was done reading the review, but I've closed the window. I'll catch it this winter when it's on sale for $4.99.

Season Pass DLCs generally provide you with all the DLC scheduled to be released for a game at a significantly lower price than you would pay to get them separately - essentially, you buy in early and you're guaranteed to pay less in the long run. The 33% discount you get from the Colonial Marines DLC hardly seems generous, though - even if (for some inexplicable reason) you want to own everything produced for the game, you're better off waiting for a Steam sale after the DLC's release.

I was smart dumb enough to preorder, and will still play it through. Who knows, maybe it's one of those games where it's so bad it's entertaining. Seems universally despised though, except for VGMNow that gave it a 9/10 for some odd reason.

All of them are, really. AVP and AVP2 both had pretty excellent campaigns and fantastic multiplayer (even though balance was a joke), and even the new AVP is actually rather excellent online on PC (the console versions stopped getting patches before flamethrowers were able to set things on fire, which is... a bit glaring).